(Lenin’s appearance was greeted with a prolonged
standing ovation. The “Internationale” was sung.)
In his speech Lenin, in a clear and popular form, explained the essential
features and basic points of the Soviet Constitution. The Soviets were the
highest form of democratic government by the people. The Soviets were not
something invented out of one’s head, they were the product of living
reality. They
appeared and developed for the first time in history in our backward
country, but objectively they should become the form of government by the
working people all over the world.

All constitutions that had existed till now safeguarded the interests
of the ruling classes. The Soviet Constitution was the only one that served
and would constantly serve the working people and was a powerful weapon in
the fight for socialism. Comrade Lenin very aptly pointed out the
differences between the demands for “freedom of the press and assembly”
in bourgeois constitutions and in the Soviet Constitution. There, freedom
of the press and assembly was an exclusive monopoly of the bourgeoisie
there the bourgeoisie met in their saloons, issued their big dailies
financed by the banks with the aim of sowing lies and slander and poisoning
the minds of the masses; there the workers’ press was strangled, not
allowed to say what it thought about the predatory war; there, those
opposed to the war were hounded and their meetings banned. Here in Soviet
Russia, however, the workers’ press existed and served the working
people. In Russia we were taking the sumptuous houses and palaces away from
the bourgeoisie and turning them over to the workers to be used by them as
clubs, and that was freedom of assembly in practice. Religion was a private
concern. Everyone could believe in what he wants or believe in nothing. The
Soviet Republic united the working people of all nations and defended the
interests o the working people without national discrimination. The Soviet
Republic knew no religious distinctions. It stood above all religion and
strove to separate religion from the Soviet state. Lenin went on to
describe the Soviet Republic’s difficult position, surrounded as it was on
all sides by imperialist predators. Comrade Lenin expressed his confidence
that the Red Army men would defend our Soviet Republic with all their might
against all encroachments by international imperialism and would keep it
safe until our ally-the international proletariat-came to our aid.
(Comrade Lenin’s speech was greeted with prolonged and tumultuous
applause. The “Internationale” was sung.)

Notes

[1]Lenin addressed a meeting in the large hail of the Racing Society at
Khodynka on the evening of July 26, 1918. The hall was crowded to
overflowing with workers and Red Army men. A soldier made a speech on
behalf of the First Reserve Artillery Brigade in which he said that in the
person of Lenin they greeted the Council of People’s Commissars and were
ready to defend the workers’ and peasants’ government at the Council’s
first call. The resolution proposed after Lenin’s speech was adopted
unanimously with one abstention. In conclusion Zriamensky briefly
acquainted the audience with Lenin’s biography.